This invention relates to the field of auxiliary gutters for receiving and housing electrical wires and cables leading to terminals of a load center or panelboard.
The trend today is toward high rise apartments, condominiums and other multi-story buildings. The service entrance in such buildings is located in the basement or bottom floor, but each apartment or condominum has its own load center. Electrical cable can be pulled floor to floor from the service entrance, cut in lengths that reach from one floor to the next, and each separate length can then be connected between a load center on one floor and one on the next floor above.
The invention herein makes it possible to avoid cutting the cable in floor to floor lengths. Instead, the wiring cable may be pulled in one continuous run from the service entrance on the bottom floor to the top floor without being cut into shorter pieces. An auxiliary gutter is provided for mounting adjacent the load center on each floor. The top and bottom end walls of each gutter have aligned recessed edge regions in which to lay the corresponding portion of cable without cutting. Clamps are provided to secure the cable to the auxiliary gutter within the recessed edge regions of the top and bottom end walls. A tap off kit connects the cable electrically to terminals of the load center in a conventional manner.
A universal cover is provided with a break-away extension tab and marginally varied mounting holes to make the auxiliary gutter and its cover useable in a plurality of different installations with load centers either of the same length or shorter than the auxially gutter.